Brian McClellan - Servant of the Crown

He was rewarded with a punch to his gut that doubled him over, the pain shooting like a bolt through his powder trance. He remained that way, stars floating before his eyes, until the guards forced him back up.

“What did that gain you?” Privileged Dienne asked.

The bastard on my left doesn’t have a proper hold on me anymore , Tamas thought. He said nothing aloud.

“You’re very stubborn,” Dienne said. “I’ll give you this; the king wants you because you’re a powder mage. But I imagine you know that already. Regardless of what he may have told you, you will gain nothing from serving him in any capacity. In a few months your rank will be stripped from you. You will be discharged from the army, and no one in all the Nine will be willing to employ you in any profession that has even the slightest scrap of dignity. You will spend the rest of your life shoveling shit or mining coal, wishing that I had killed you. Now what did the king want?”

Dienne might as well have admitted that she was behind his suspension, confirming Tamas’s suspicions. Not that the knowledge gave him any satisfaction. He could feel the pressure build in the back of his jaw. It started as a niggle, then an increased force, as if someone was drilling his molars from the inside out. He gave an involuntary whimper.

The pressure lessened. “What was that?” Dienne said, leaning forward with a smile.

“He’s playing you,” Tamas finally got out.

The smile disappeared. “Explain.”

“What does he want me for? Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“You’re trying my patience.”

“And you’re trying mine. If you’re going to torture me, get on with it. But I just told you what you wanted to know.”

Dienne stared at him as if she were looking at a particularly hideous dog. Tamas wondered if anyone had ever shown her any kind of defiance in her life as a Privileged. “Have it your way,” she finally said with a snort.

Tamas felt the pressure in his teeth increase suddenly, and he anticipated the scream that was about to tear itself from his throat.

“That’s enough of that,” a voice said.

The room grew very suddenly still. The guards all looked at the Privileged, Dienne’s posture was suddenly stiff as if there was something pressed against the small of her back.

“If you so much as twitch a finger I will splatter your heart across the front of Captain Tamas’s nice uniform.” Erika’s face appeared in the open window just over Dienne’s shoulder. “Tell your guards to step away.”

“Do it,” Dienne said.

Tamas was released, and the four guards pressed themselves into the corners of the room without protest.

“Now hold your hands in the air, fingers splayed,” Erika instructed the Privileged. Dienne’s raised her hands slowly, and Erika reached one hand around to pluck off the gloves, one finger at a time. When she had pocketed the gloves, she said, “Tamas, get out of here.”

Tamas’s mouth was dry. He snatched up his knife and pistol, then put on his hat. He wasn’t about to argue.

“You’ve just killed yourself in the most painful way you can imagine, girl,” Dienne said.

“And you’ll kill yourself in a very fast way if you move even the slightest bit,” Erika said.

Tamas unlatched his door and swung it open with one elbow, trying to watch the guards and Privileged all at once. He checked to be sure his sword was still attached to his belt-the guard hadn’t bothered taking something that would be no use to him in such close quarters.

He stepped out the door and immediately began to sprint, following Erika’s tracks in the fresh-fallen snow. He slid around the corner, then around another until he reached the rear entrance to the courtyard behind his tenement. Erika met him there, pistol still in her hand.

“You saved my life,” he said. The thought floored him.

“Just returning the favor.”

Tamas was taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“No time to explain,” Erika said. Her hair was soaked with sweat, and as he clutched her shoulders he could tell that she was trembling fiercely.

“Powder,” he told her. “It’ll help with the nerves.”

“I don’t …” she fumbled with her belt pouch.

Tamas took a powder charge from his kit and tore it open with his teeth. He took her by the chin, pulling her lip down with one thumb, and pressing the powder into her gum. She licked the powder away and looked up at him.

She smiled as he pulled away. Her trembling had stopped. The whole exchange had taken just a dozen heartbeats, but Tamas knew that it had been too long.

“We have to run.”

“I took her gloves.”

“She’ll have extras.”

As if to prove his point, Tamas felt his sixth sense pricked as sorcery was pulled violently into this world. He hugged Erika to him and threw them both backwards. The fireball that tore through where they had just been standing cut through the brick of the tenement like a cannonball.

They leapt to their feet, sliding on the snow, and began to run.

“She won’t open up entirely,” Tamas said. “Not in the city.” I hope , he added silently.

They fled hand-in-hand down the alley, then cut across the road and down another. Tamas turned to see the four cabal guards barreling after them, sabers drawn.

“We’re going to have to fight them,” Erika said.

Tamas replied, “You’re bloody mad; we can’t stop for that long.”

“We’ll never lose them with a fresh coat of snow.”

Tamas swore. She was right. Even if they used their powder trances to outdistance the guards, they would be able to track them without too much trouble. “We’ll have to cut through taverns, inns. A few crowded places and we’ll lose them.”

“We’re not leading an angry Privileged through an inn full of people!” Erika said.

“It’s that or our heads.”

“That is not acceptable!”

Erika stopped, and Tamas almost fell on the slick cobbles. “Don’t be a fool,” he said.

“Run if you want, but I never took you for a coward, Captain Tamas.” Erika grasped the hilt of her sword.

This was a damned bad time for her to prove she was a better person than he’d thought. “Bloody pit,” he said, “Not here. We’ll choose better ground.”

Tamas pulled Erika further up the street, looking for an alley where they could face the guards two at a time, hoping to cut them down before the Privileged caught up. He felt a tug at his hand and turned to see Erika run down a narrow alley.

“This way,” she said.

“No, that will take us back around in a circle, I …”

Privileged Dienne appeared in the far entrance of the alley. Tamas didn’t bother finishing his sentence. He drew his pistol and fired, pushing the bullet around Erika and at Dienne, whose fingers had begun to move when she saw Tamas draw. Dienne darted for cover. Tamas’s bullet blew through her left hand, and she tumbled into the snow.

Erika barely seemed to register what had just happened. Tamas shoved her through the narrow alley and into the next street, where Dienne lay clutching her hand and bleeding. Tamas drew his sword. If he left her alive, he was as good as dead.

The cabal guards caught up too fast.

Tamas whirled to face them, discarding his spent pistol.

The four guards had heavy sabers and cuirasses, making them all but impossible to fence conventionally. Both he and Erika would be at a disadvantage with their small swords, even if Tamas had the experience of fighting heavily armored men.

He and Erika stood back to back, swords drawn, as the four guards surrounded them. “The Privileged won’t be able to fight without her hand,” he said to her. “It’s just us against them.”